I heard the machines growling behind me, louder now. In a smooth patch of water, I carved a fine jibe, and headed the other way. They just leaned into the turn like bikers, and followed me. In a moment, they had me sandwiched. Hector reached for the bowline again, and I whipped the boom toward him with my aft hand. The outhaul tip caught him on the side of the head and nearly toppled him from his steed. His curses were drowned out by the engines.
The other one sped up and shot across open water ahead of me. Then he turned and idled, blocking my path. I could have jibed again and headed back toward Hector, who was bleeding just above the ear. Or I could imitate some of the wind fanatics from Maui and the Columbia River Gorge, gymnast-sized guys who fly over objects in their path. A decent-sized roller was coming, just between us. I had the board for it, but not the body. At my weight, you don’t jump waves so much as hippity-hop them. Still, I tried to unweight, lifting my feet against the footstraps just as the wave hoisted me, pumping the sail hard.
I got airborne, all right, but only about eighteen inches. I heard him scream, saw him duck, felt the pointy nose of the board strike metal, as I catapulted forward. I didn’t know my bow had hit the gas tank until a moment later. The explosion wasn’t much. You don’t get much of a pop from three gallons of lead-free. Besides, I was under water at the time, and it felt no worse than a tight end cuffing me across the ear holes of the helmet. Hector’s pal wasn’t so lucky. If his nose wasn’t broken from the mast smacking him, its appearance wasn’t improved any, either.
As I treaded water next to my splintered toy, Jillian sailed close, trying to figure out how to stop her big, lunky floater.
“Jeez, you were right,” she said, splashing by me. “I’ve never seen anything like this in Minnesota.”
W ould you care for lunch?” Matsuo Yagamata asked, gesturing toward a buffet table spread with cold seafood that somebody had forgotten to cook.
My social life was improving: two invitations in one day.
Yagamata didn’t wait for me. He lowered himself into an orange deck chair with a canvas back, while a lean Asian man in white served him raw octopus from an ice-filled platter. We were anchored a mile offshore, the bow pointing northeast, and we had a splendid view of the Art Deco hotels of South Beach. I still hadn’t said a word.
“Mr. Lassiter, you did call my office asking to see me.”
I took a seat at the table directly across from him. “Most clients simply call back, set up an appointment. They don’t send two goons to scoop me up.”
His look told me he was not like most clients. I glanced over the rail toward the beach. “Besides, I had other plans.”
“Don’t worry about your friend. My crew members saw to it that she made it safely to shore.”
“Your crew members are thugs,” I said. Beneath my feet, the deck of Yagamata’s yacht swayed with the surge of the windwhipped tide.
Yagamata nodded so gravely it was almost a bow. “You have my sincere apologies for the conduct of my men. They obviously did not convey my invitation in the proper manner. Had the occasion been strictly social, I could have asked your beautiful friend to join us, also.”
Yagamata was wearing khaki cotton slacks and a matching short-sleeve shirt with buttoned pockets and epaulets. He looked at me from behind wire-rimmed sunglasses and tapped the barrel of the yellow, waterproof binoculars that hung around his thick neck. For the second time in a week, I thought of Pearl Harbor.
“I watched you approach her on the beach.” Either he had something in his eye or he winked at me. “You can learn a lot about a man by the way he handles women. I have heard a saying in your country that all you need to know about a man is the car he drives, the shoes he wears, and the woman he marries. Would you agree?”
“My car’s twenty-five years old; I go barefoot whenever possible; and no woman has ever had the nerve.”
Yagamata allowed himself a brief smile. From somewhere below deck, a pump began whooshing. The clipped chatter of Japanese-two men, voices competing with the rush of the wind-came from the galley. I had changed into a dry pair of trunks that were too small for me, and I wore a terry-cloth robe with the monogram “ Yugen,” which was the name of the fifty-one-foot Bluewater cruiser whose deck was now pitching beneath my feet. My board and rig had been hauled aboard and were lashed to the starboard rail.
A handsome beige helicopter was tied down near the stern. An Italian model, the Agusta. The Yugen was a fine boat, Yagamata told me, with a modified V-hull and a flared bow, and though it displaced twenty-six thousand pounds, its draft was only twenty-three inches. So it was suited for cruising the shallows of Biscayne Bay, but here on the ocean side, in twenty knots of wind, it was top-heavy and rocked me right out of my appetite. I can windsurf in the choppiest water for hours and never feel a thing. But anchor me on a bouncing tug, I’d lose my lunch, if I had any, which I hadn’t.
Whether he sensed the problem or not, Yagamata barked orders at his captain-a sunbaked man in his forties-in what I first thought was Japanese but then realized was Russian. Somewhere among the guttural sounds, I picked up the word “Intracoastal.” Then, Yagamata asked again if I wanted some sushi. I had to be polite. This guy was an important client, who also went to some effort to demonstrate that a luncheon date was more a command than an invitation. I knew I could get the raw tuna down with no problem. It looked like beef tenderloin, and I’d had it before with ample quantities of Kirin. But the salmon roe and eel did not make my mouth water, and I’d stepped on enough sea urchins to know I’d rather eat porcupine quills. Besides, I’ve seen the sludge that pours into our waters, so I prefer my fish cooked.
When I hesitated, Yagamata tried gentle persuasion. “Perhaps some miso ae, a very light appetizer?”
I looked a question at him.
“Conch, octopus, and cucumbers in a miso sauce. Or you may prefer flying fish eggs and swordfish belly.”
I would have preferred a cheeseburger with a chocolate shake, but I settled for cold tofu spiced with ginger and scallions. The taste was fine, though the consistency reminded me of a soggy sponge. I was washing it down with some of Matsuo Yagamata’s champagne when he asked why I had wanted to see him.
“To learn more about Crespo and Smorodinsky,” I told him.
His arms were folded across his stocky chest. “You received their personnel files, did you not?”
I had. There was nothing useful in them. Crespo had worked for Yagamata Imports for five years, Smorodinsky for three. Each one had been shifted around, sometimes assigned to the Atlantic Seaboard warehouse, sometimes helping at a wholesale distribution office, or on the Yugen, even doing chores at Yagamata’s Palm Island home.
“The two men shared some work details,” I said. “Did they ever argue? Did Smorodinsky do anything to provoke Crespo?”
Yagamata dismissed the notion with an economical wave of his hand. “I am not that close with my workers. Ask your client these questions.”
“I have. All he talks about is an argument over eighteen dollars.”
Yagamata speared a slice of squid on a fancy toothpick with a frizzy red head like Little Orphan Annie. “Men have been killed for less. Surely you know that.”
“Crespo’s making it up as he goes. He didn’t kill the Russian.”
Yagamata showed me a meager, quizzical smile. “Tell me, what does a lawyer do when he doesn’t believe his own client?”
“Keeps on breathing, ‘cause it happens every day.”
“So your job is not to find the truth, Mr. Lassiter.”